Leap of Faith by Cassidy Shay (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

my dad tonight. As we're driving down the road, Mikey takes a deep breath. 
    "It feels so good not to be stuck in the house anymore. the last week and a half has been the worst few days of my life."
    I laugh. "Maybe next time, you should call your mom and tell her where you are." The rest of the drive is quiet, so that he can keep his eyes on the road. 
   Once we get there, he comes over to my side and opens my door for me. He leads me to the front door and up the stairs into the crowd. 
    The house isn't full yet, but I don't know anyone here. Mikey leads me down a hallway, knocks on a door. When there's no answer, he barges in. 
    Joe stands in the middle of the room, pulls his shirt down over his head as we burst through the door. "Woah, hey! What the heck, Mikey?" he shouts. His hair looks wet, like he just got out of the shower.
    Mikey just shrugs. "You told me to come find you once we got here. Well... we're here."
    Joe's only reply is a snort. "Yeah, I can see that." His gaze shifts a few inches over, to my face, and he smiles. "Hi, Amia. How are you doing?"
    "Good," I say. "I'm glad to actually see people other than my mom and sister." 
    Just then, Mary comes into the room. "Joe, Mom wants you in the kitchen." 
    He sighs. "Meet me out on the back porch, okay?" he says to us, and then follows his sister out into the hall. 
    We follow him part of the way, but once we get to the living room area, we head for the back door. We're the only ones out on the porch. I walk up to the railing that surrounds it and look across the back yard. It's dark, but the porch light lets me see a line of trees against the back fence, a tree in the in the middle of the yard with some type of fort thing attached to it. There's a sandbox in one spot, an old swing set in another. "This looks like a really cool yard to have as a kid."
    I feel Mikey stand next to me. His arm brushes against mine. "It was. I used to come over here all the time. We'd have so much fun with the cherry tree." He points to the tree with the fort.
    Then, he laughs. "We stayed away from the sandbox, though. Mary used to bury her dirty diapers in there." 
    I feel footsteps coming towards us, and turn around to see Joe. He's just finishing up a sentence, but I don't catch what it was. 
    He comes up on my other side by the rail. "Have you guys had a date yet? A real one?"
    I look at Mikey, wondering if he's going to answer. "Does this count as a date?"
    I look to Joe for the answer. "I think it does. A date doesn't have to be dinner and a movie, does it?"
    I link my arm with Mikey's. "Then it's a date."
    As the night goes on, more people show up to the party. The adults mostly stay inside, except for a couple that come out for a smoke. The back porch fills up with teenagers, and I prepare myself for wave after wave of introductions. 
    I meet more cousins, family friends, friends of friends, friends of cousins. There are only about thirty people out here, but everyone is connected in a different way. At least I'm not the only one who only knows a couple people.
    Most of the people, though, know who I am. Either they listen to the radio, or they have heard about me in magazines and newspapers. 
    I spend most of the night talking to people about my hearing, because that's what they all ask about. As I move from person to person, I'm surprised at how interested they all are in my story. 
    By 11:45, most people have gone inside to watch the ball drop on the big TV in the living room. There are a few of us that stay outside in the cold air, huddled against each other for warmth. Mikey and I stand in the corner talking to Joe. We're talking about our futures, what we want to do, if we want to have kids. "I love kids," Joe tells us, "and everyone tells me that I'd be a good dad. Some people tell me that I should become a priest, because of how strong I am in my faith." He says this sentence with a blush, showing his humility. I've learned that Joe likes to joke around a lot, which makes his true personality a little surprising at times. "But I really want kids. I'll just raise them in the Church."
    I nod my head, smiling. "Not many guys have a goal of making a bunch of kids," I say.
    He just laughs. "Well... it's what I want to do. I guess I'm not most guys."
    I look at Mikey, who's been mostly quiet for this conversation. "What do you want to do?" I ask him. 
    "I'm not sure yet," he answers. "Definitely college, but I don't know what I want to study. And after that? Who knows. I might get married. Maybe I'll become a priest. Maybe I'll just be single. I don't know yet."
    Joe hits him on the shoulder. "You better figure that out, because you're running out of time." He takes a couple steps back. "I'm gonna go inside now. It's cold out. I'll be back later, after midnight." As he slides the sliding glass door shut, he winks at us. "Have fun, you two."
    I roll my eyes and look back at Mikey, who seems closer than he was a minute ago. Oh well. I step even closer and wrap my arms around his neck. 
    "Thanks for inviting me," I say. "I would have been either at my house alone, or out somewhere with my family. And I'm sick of my family right now." 
    He laughs. "I was about to strangle my parents by the time they ungrounded me. I know I should have called them, but they were breathing down my neck for the last three weeks." 
    I rest my head against his chest for a couple minutes, waiting for this year to end. After a while, Mikey shifts a little bit, and I look up at him. I see him form the words "seven, six, five, four, three." At two, he bends down so that his lips meet mine. 
    It's a soft kiss, warm against the December air. It only lasts a couple seconds before I feel something cold on my cheek. I pull away and see snowflakes floating through the air. I separate myself from Mikey, spin around with my head tipped back and mouth open to catch the snow.
    Mikey grabs my arm, pulls me back into him, smiling. As I lean against him, I hear him say, "Happy New Year, Amia." Mikey

 

When I drop Amia off at home, I don't want to let her go. I don't want to drop her off at her house, and go home to my house with my parents. Even though they let me off a night early, I have the feeling it's not because they're not still mad, but because they wanted to go out and have a good time tonight with their friends too. 
     I pull up to her house, and she doesn't get out right away. She's looking down at her hands, and I can see a small smile on her face. I wonder what she's thinking. Finally, she lifts her head and looks at me. 
     "I had fun tonight," she says. "I'm glad that your parents let you off a night early." I start to reply, but she doesn't let me. "You have changed my life, Mikey. You've brought God back into my life. I still have some doubts, and I'm still not sure what I believe. But I believe that he's there, and that was your doing. I haven't enjoyed myself with anyone since I was six- after I went deaf everyone just treated me differently, even the kids at my school. But you make me feel like a normal person again. Thank you, Mikey, for everything."
    She leans over, gives me a quick kiss, and gets out of the car. I sit there, shocked. I didn't realize that she credited me with all that. 
    I wait until I see her go back inside before I pull out onto the road. It's still snowing, just barely, but the past couple hours have caused quite a build-up of snow. Since we hardly ever get snow here, I drive extra carefully. I get home safely, and find that my parents still aren't home. There's a message on the answering machine, so I check it. It's my mom, saying that they're going to stay at my aunt and uncle's house tonight. "I'm going to help them clean up from the party, and your father fell asleep shortly after the ball dropped. We'll see you tomorrow. Love you." As I erase the message, I notice that her voice seemed sad, heavy. She sounded perfectly sober, but almost like she'd been crying. 
    I push all that out of my mind and go up to my room, try to sleep. But I lay awake for a couple more hours, staring at my ceiling. For a while I think about Amia, and then I start to think about what I want to do with my life. It's my senior year, and it's about time that I at least have a general idea of what I want to do. Right?
    Eventually I drift off to sleep, and wake up the next morning long after the sun has come up.

The next few days until school starts are pretty uneventful. I have my radio show, I hang out with Amia once. On the Sunday before school starts, Amia comes to church with us again. After mass, Amia and I go out to brunch while my parents go home. 
    Once we sit down at a booth and order, we make small conversation. "Are you ready for school tomorrow?" I ask her. 
    She shrugs. "I don't know. I mean, these last couple weeks have been so relaxed compared to school. With school, all the teachers are just... I mean they try their hardest, they really do. But it's just difficult to learn when you can't hear what's going on." She takes a deep breath, and then mumbles, "I mean it would be different if they were like you..."
    I laugh. "I don't think that's how it works. If I was up there teaching, it's not like you'd magically be able to hear me. I mean unless I was on the radio."